Pinecone Wreath Tutorial

hello all you U-CREATE-ers!
i’m Vanessa fromV and Co.
Kari graciously asked me to guest blog today.
and i graciously said:
“um, are you sure? cause you have like a lot of followers and you are kind of cool…you might want to keep that going. but whatever, it’s your blog, and for the day it’s mine so take a seat and watch your pretty hard work go down the drain.”she said:
“bring it on.”

so here i am “bringing it on” with a tutorial worthy for U-create.
shall we begin?

Pinecone Wreath Tutorial

beautify your home for the fall season with this super cheap and easy wreath, that looks like a million bucks!

what you will need:

a styrofoam wreath.
i bought two sizes.
for this wreath i used the larger of the two. but either one will work. (if your pine cones are big you will want to definitely use a bigger wreath)a bag full of small pine cones (we, as a family were in the woods. while my husband cut fire wood, the kids and i gathered these pine cones off the ground.)

brown spray paint, lightly spray paint your styrofoam wreath. you don’t need to douse it, you just want to lightly cover it so no white shows through.now you are going to grab your pine cone and dab a little bit of hot glue to the bottom of it.place in the middle of your styrofoam wreath.
okay we are off to a good start! line up how ever many pine cones across the top of your wreath, my magic # was three.
(sorry about the blur)okay here’s an important instruction.
notice how i nestled the next row up in between the first row?
this is going to help cover up most of your wreath.
*let me mention that it would be good to add a little extra glue in between the pine cones so that they connect and stay together and make the wreath that much sturdier.

see where i’m going with this?
basically this is the recipe for the whole wreath.

as you keep adding pine cones you are going to come to the edge of your wreath. i made sure that there wasn’t any corner that was bare. that meant going on the corner with some of my pine cones.

as you continue the process you will get a hint of what the final product is going to look like.

oh are you tired? keep going you’re still not done.
see this is going to take a little while but…

it’s so worth it when you are done! look how fantabulous it looks!
to get a feel as to how much one of these would cost i went online and i found a range of them from $59 to $110.
um… mine cost $4.25 plus spray paint i had and an afternoon with my kids picking up pine cones. yeah, i think i like my price better.

edited: because there was a question about the “ribbon” i will mention here that it was two strips of fabric(that way it makes it long enough to hang on a mirror) cut to 5 1/2 inches in width. i tied them in a knot and hid the knot behind the wreath and made a big loose knot on top of a tight knot so you can hang it off a nail either behind the mirror or right on top of the mirror.

well, thank you kari and u-create readers for letting me take a little bit of your time to give you a little taste of what you would get on my blog. make sure you check out my tutorials i make for the Moda Bake Shop as well! thank you kari for entrusting me with your blog for the day!
hope to see you soon! –V

What a fabulous idea. This brings back memories of my Mom making these when I was a kid from the pine cones we’d pick up and gift to her. Thanks for the tutorial and I’ve enjoyed my visit here today.Blessings and thanksT

an another suggestion is to make pinecone balls, if you blow up the picture you will see that i made one just to make it tie all together it’s on the right hand side with my twine balls that i made (and have a tutorial for as well)

One tip…store wreath in a cool location. The first year my mom stored hers in our attic. During the hot summer months the hot glue warmed up again and all the pine cones fell off. So she re-glued it again the next fall/winter. The same principal applies if you are hanging this in direct sunlight.

Love it when I can catch two blogs I follow with one!!! My little ones and I have been hiking on the weekends~ pickin’ up random pinecones…now, we have a good excuse to gather all that we find!! Mahalo Vanessa ~ twice over!!

I love it. Someone gave me one years ago that she made. It’s still hanging in our “cedar room”. Funny thing, she said I almost didn’t give it to you because you make things and sell them (years ago I did craft shows). She didn’t realize that all crafters prize things made with the hand! (smile)

Thanks so much for taking the time to share this! I am so relieved to find a craft blog that will give me gorgeous decorations at a fraction of the cost. you are very creative and I’m heading out to the lake to get some pine cones!

I made this wreath and put it up for the holidays-it looked so beautiful. I added a little greenery and red berries from a bush that I had in my front yard and it gave it a little pop of color. Thanks so much for the great tutorial!

This is amazing! I love everything about this wreath! Makes me wish I lived closer to Pine trees (I live in AZ). I featured it today on my blog! So many other girls are going to AWE when they see your cute wreath! Thanks for sharing such a great tutorial!XOXOTaraSalt and Pepper Moms